


Voices

by PeniG



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Historical, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, No actual smut occurring in this fic, Other, Sailing, Sex Education, Smut adjacent, The Spanish Inquisition, musical theater
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25777162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeniG/pseuds/PeniG
Summary: Five Conversations in the Dark, and One in the Light
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 114





	1. 3900 BCE

“Well, this is awkward.”

“I guess it could be, if we can’t keep the job out of it. I’m off the clock, myself.”

“You have set hours?”

“Eh, what Hell doesn’t know won’t hurt me. Can’t be working all the time.”

“Tell that to Gabriel! He’s my boss now. And he’d expect me to banish you, at the very least.”

“You could _try._ But that would be breaking the laws of hospitality. Not a good look on an angel.”

“That’s true. I suppose we’ll just have to cope. But this household is under my protection, so don’t you try your wiles on them.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Relax, angel, have a drink.”

“Did you steal our host’s wine? _Really,_ Crawly!”

“No, I didn’t. Perfectly fair trade, when you take into account that every trade is the result of a difference of opinion. _He_ thinks he diddled _me_ , trading a bronze axhead for a ten-year-old jar of wine he’d forgotten about in the back of the storeroom, and _I_ think - well, here, taste it. It’s not gone to vinegar, I promise!”

“Oh, all right... _Oh_. Oh, my _goodness!_ ”

“I _know_! And he had _no_ idea. It’s something they’ve figured out in the coastal highlands, where the grapes grow so well - if you store it the right way, wine gets better and better and better before it finally goes off. If I knew how to carry big loads of it, and cared about profits, I could make a fortune peddling this stuff. As it is, I can make some sweet trades in the places that haven’t gotten the word yet, and get myself through a night very pleasantly.”

“It’s - the flavor has _layers_ \- thank -“

“Nope, no thanking, what would your boss think? I only offered it to you because we may as well make ourselves comfortable, since we’re stuck here all night. What’ve you been up to, angel? Got a new sword?”

“Most of my time lately is spent cleaning up after _you._ ”

“Hey! I’m neat as a pin.”

“Not like that. I mean the spiritual messes you leave behind you among the humans. I’m a Guardian, now, here to thwart your wiles.”

“What, so you’re following me around undoing all my hard work?”

“Nothing so systematic, I’m afraid. Heaven keeps moving me every time I start sorting out a routine. The number of Guardians is still rather small, you see. Gabriel’s recruiting, but at the moment it’s, erm, basically me. Besides, Sin’s not undoable; once the humans make a choice they can’t _un_ make it. All I can do is encourage them to see where they went wrong and make better choices in the future. Which is a bit of a mixed bag, since so often the consequences of a bad decision fall hardest on those other than the one making it.”

“Eh, I do my worst. So you’re not really roaming around healing people, in spite of the big bag of medicine?”

“I heal people when I’m allowed to, but there’s - larger issues there. I’m limited in the ways I can step in. They’re supposed to be figuring out medicine for themselves, you see, and I don’t think Raphael grasps exactly how counterintuitive germs and the most delicate bits of physiology are for them. The traveling healer bit was my idea, to help me blend in and guarantee I’d be welcome anywhere I had to go, and could do at least a little bit of practical good without breaking the rules. But my primary job is supposed to be thwarting evil. So I’ve been seeking out households and settlements where a red-haired snake-eyed peddler’s been through and left all kinds of personal snarls and tangles in his wake. I’m astonished that I’ve caught up with you. It took me a week to sort out that mess of jealousy and lust and wrath you left in that last farmstead.”

“A week? Really? Took all of five minutes to set up. Amazing what you can do with the right word in the wrong ear.”

“Yes, well, I was in time to prevent Yusuf from killing Hus and Deborah, anyway.”

_“What?”_

“He’d already hit Deborah on the head with the spade - filthy thing! I’m not allowed to miracle away sepsis, so it took almost an hour to clean it all out, with her sobbing uncontrollably, and everyone in a mile radius yelling at each other. Some of them were more upset about the blow that _missed_ Hus than the one that _hit_ Deborah. It was all very vexing, so congratulations, I suppose.”

“That _wasn’t_ \- Which one’s Deborah? Big eyes, spends all her time on her hair?”

“No, no, Deborah’s the one cooking and cleaning and washing the children before the patriarch sees them. Squints.”

“But she wasn’t even _in_ it - she - you’re _kidding!_ ”

“Why would I kid about something so dreadful? I know you’ve got a job to do, but -“

“Hold on hold on hold on, violence was _not_ the plan! All I meant to do was get the teens involved in a stupid decision cascade.”

“Like you did with Cain.”

“I didn’t - I _didn’t_ , Abel _wasn’t_ \- Cain didn’t _get_ it, nobody’d _died_ before, not humans, he was still a kid, really - he kept trying to wake Abel up again - and I hadn’t even, I’d just muttered a bit about God being arbitrary and playing favorites, which was _true,_ and then he went and - I was as shocked as anybody, all right? I don’t _like_ murder. It takes all the fun out of things.”

“Then perhaps you should learn to be more careful.” 

“I _am_ careful, but if I want to keep myself roaming around free up here I have to make some effort, and you must know how unpredictable humans are. If Himself Below ever figures out how little input from me they need to get themselves into trouble I’ll never see the sun again. The kids at that farmstead had set themselves up before I ever got there. All I had to do was ask a few leading questions and they were off and running. But it was all shouting and angry silence and work not getting done when I left, and Cooking Girl wasn’t involved in _any_ of it. I _swear_. On my _snake_ , I swear. What happened?”

“Deborah tried to smooth things over, got caught in the middle, and nearly had her brains bashed in for her pains.”

“Ugh, do-gooders - no offense meant.”

“None taken. Yes, thank you, just a drop more...I swear I can taste the sunshine in this.”

“And the fog, yeah. Don’t drink too fast - it’s a wee bit stronger than ordinary table wine. Cooking Girl’s all right now, though? You saved her?”

“Oh, yes. She, um, well, did you ever meet the neighbor running goats in the high pasture?”

“Yeah, he came down for what I gathered was his weekly shot at a home-cooked meal while I was there. Nice old bugger.”

“Not _that_ old. And very kind. He’ll let Deborah run her own show and I think they’ll get along very comfortably.”

“Wait - did you broker her a match with him?”

“Not exactly - look, she wanted out of the house, no blame to her, and after I put a stop to the murdering business she rather, um, latched onto me, so - Shut up, it’s not funny!”

“No, it’s _hilarious!_ Oh, if you could see your face -“

“No it’s _not_! Even if the power imbalance didn’t make me so uncomfortable, there’s been some angels getting, getting involved with humans like that. It’s a bit controversial. The Watcher Service claims it’s necessary to their task, but Gabriel’s made it clear that it won’t be tolerated in the Guardian Service. As in, threats of Falling not tolerated.”

“Really? That _is_ less funny. You’d make a terrible demon. So, back to the story, Cooking Girl’s mooning after you - can’t blame the girl, saving her life and all. That’s bound to make someone attractive. I’d be careful how often I did that sort of thing, if I were you.”

“Well, you’re _not_ me and what was I supposed to do, stand by and watch?”

“Yeah, I get it, done laughing now. What happened next?”

“I explained to her that I didn’t need or want a wife and she could do better. She didn’t seem to believe me at first, but then Kenan came down and, well, like you said, they mostly manage these things themselves. He was _very_ angry with her family when I told him about what had happened, told the patriarch off in no uncertain terms and offered twenty nannies, in kid, for her. She was gobsmacked - nobody’d ever hinted at valuing her so high before. Eyes only for him, after that. And Yusuf’s taken off on his own, working for that big sheep concern across the river. So everything’s settled down now, as far as I know, but it was touch and go for awhile there and I just wish you’d - oh, never mind. We don’t control them.”

“Wouldn’t want to! If they were controllable they wouldn’t keep popping out the surprises. Great thing about the peddler cover, I get to see all the new inventions and stuff. These cups, now - is that glaze amazing, or what?”

“It _is_ , it’s gorgeous. And that’s a very nice weave in your shawl. I’ve been assuming you miracled it?”

“No, no - well, a little in the dye, to get it black enough, but the weaving’s all human on this outfit. And - here - let me get my pack out - they’re _so_ clever, I’ve got all kinds of stuff here - unless you want to sleep?”

“Oh, no, thank - I mean, I never sleep.”

“What, never?”

“Seems like a waste of time.”

“Well, but - you’re wasting it anyway when you’re staying the night with humans. What do you do when you’ve got no demon to pass the time with?”

“Oh, lots of things. Rehearse my reports. Go over stories and poetry and music I’ve heard recently, make sure I get them fixed in my mind. Sometimes, if I’m sure everyone’s sound asleep enough, get up and potter around a bit, clearing hazards, laying some light blessings around, that sort of thing.”

“So you really are on duty all the time? Aren’t you _tired_?”

“Oh, no! No, sharing their meals perks me up wonderfully, and - and it isn’t _all_ duty. Nobody’s _told_ me to remember the stories and things. Nobody I talk to in Heaven seems all that interested. But I find them every bit as nourishing as the food. Slightly less so, when I’m telling them to myself, but even so, a poem’s as good as a nap any day. They’re so lovely, and so fascinating - not enough happens in the real world to satisfy them, so _they make things up_ \- creativity is such a wonderful thing!”

“Even when humans use it to make up horrible things?”

“Like what?”

“You heard the one about the demon snake who eats children?”

“Well, all right, the content of that _is_ rather horrible - I’ve had to soothe a number of nightmares from it - but, it’s not as if demons aren’t a problem. Horrible stories are often important warnings.”

“Yeah, but we’re not _wild animals_! At least -“

“At least, you’re not. But they don’t _know_ you’re a demon, my dear. I’m sure they’d never knowingly do anything to hurt your feelings. ”

“My _feelings_ are _fine,_ angel, nobody hurtss them!...My eyes sscare them sometimes. Which is fine. Prefer it.”

“It doesn’t seem to hinder your productivity.”

“Naw, I’ve got a lot of dodges to get past it. Anyway, a little more wine, and you’ve _got_ to see this toy I picked up from this brilliant little woodworker near the Dead Sea...”


	2. 1153

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whose wiles are whose? Also, adult demon education.

“You’re right, angel, this is a good spot. The viewing’ll be great once it gets to be full dark. The isolation doesn’t make you nervous?”

“No, I think we’re all right. We’re so close to the castle of the family I’m supposed to be encouraging to righteousness, I _had_ to come out here and distract you in order to protect them. If anyone comes along I’ll need to banish you, but -”

“Yeah, but they _won’t_ come. Good, we’re all set, then. Clearest sky I’ve had for the Perseids in a few decades, too. What’s in the basket?”

“I stopped by that bakeshop behind the convent - they make such excellent shortbreads -“

“The one where the baker died last month?”

“Yes. The widow and the children are keeping it open. Working very hard, but then they always did.”

“You bought every single thing they hadn’t sold today, didn’t you?”

“You know how peckish the country air makes me! Here, have a jam bun.”

“Eh, maybe one, silly sticky stuff. I only burdened myself with the really important things. White, or red?”

“Oh, white to start off with, by all means. You don’t look much the worse for your visit to your office.”

“Nope, purely a utility run this time. They’re thinking of starting to require written reports. Demonstrated my fluency with a pen, gave ‘em the general rundown. Any important developments here?” 

“Nothing earthshattering, but. Well. Hannelore and Otto’s wedding is next month.”

“Ah. Well, sorry angel, you win some, you lose some.”

“I’m not counting it as a loss. We had a good long talk about it, and then she talked to Greta and Otto - together - and made her decision, and they both accepted it.”

“ _What_? Angel, that’s an _impossible_ marriage! That’s the whole _reason_ I ever pointed her out to Otto! And what about Greta?”

“Greta loves Hannelore enough to respect her decision. And Otto respects her enough not to hold the previous attachment against her.”

“Oh, yeah, _that’ll_ work out, I’m sure!”

“With a little good will all round, yes, it _will.”_

“It’ll all end in tears and sinning in five years!”

“Not if they choose wisely going forward. There’s no need to be upset.”

“I’m _not_ upset, I’m confused why _you’re_ not upset. Greta adores Hannelore - she’s clearly the better choice of partner. Otto likes her fine, but marriage is mostly a business arrangement to him.”

“Well, so it is to most people in this area at this time. Hannelore had a lot of factors to consider.”

“What other factors? What could possibly outweigh the prospect of spending the rest of her life with a woman who thinks she hung the moon?”

“She wants children. She always has. Any life without them ultimately seems to her barren and wasted. _Passion is the present, but children are the future_ , she said.”

“So? Greta’s a sharp business woman. She can support all the children Hannelore wants to bud out.”

“...Bud out?”

“Custom gives sin a huge leg up, in things like that, you know. Drill it into a woman’s head that she needs a man to provide for her kids, she’ll apparently trade in nearly anything for it.”

“I don’t think Greta, in this scenario, would be nearly as complacent about Hannelore getting pregnant as you seem to imagine.”

“Why not?”

“Just because Greta’s willing to accept that Hannelore has chosen to make a commitment to Otto instead of to her, _doesn’t_ mean that she’d be willing to accept Hannelore having sexual relations with other people if they were committed to each other.”  
  
“No, why should she?”

“Crowley. My dear. Do you _know_ how babies are made?”

“Do I - of course I know how babies are made!”

“Could you explain the process to me, then? Please?”

“What, don’t you know? You’ve delivered them off and on for five millennia, how can you _not_ know?”

“Indulge me.”

“All right, all right. Well. A woman gets to be a particular age and weight - not sure of all the specific criteria; it seems to have a lot of individual variation - and when she reaches critical mass she buds out, in a process which is way more messy and dangerous than it ought to be because Somebody overreacted to Eve’s dietary choices.”

“I see. And what role do men play in the process?”

“They don’t, not the making. But babies take a lot out of a woman - literally - and she needs a secure place to bud out and raise them, and since men can’t have kids they’ll cut a deal with a woman to take care of her and hers in exchange for certain considerations. Which women really ought to drive harder bargains about. I mean, they’ve got the kid monopoly. They _ought_ to have the men over a barrel.”

“Hmm. And children resemble their fathers because -?”

“Imprinting. They take on features of the people the mother sees most often, or who make the strongest impression on her. Which is why, if she’s got somebody on the side when she buds, the kid’s face sometimes gives the game away. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Where did you _get_ this information?”

“Observation, mostly; and way back when, between being laid off from making stars and the War, I used to go poking my nose into the various workshops, see what other angels were up to. Somebody in the animalculae shop explained how reproduction works before I got thrown out.”

“How it works in animalculae. Not in complex organisms.”

“Yeah, well, the principle’s the same.”

“No. My dear. It’s _not._ Why do you suppose complex organisms tend to have a male/female spectrum?”

“Division of labor. Babies eat up a lot of resources and budding leaves a mother weakened. Doing it alone’s a bad idea. Especially in humans, the kids are so helpless so long.”

“But the women could club together to raise children. If they had no men, they inevitably _would_. And not all women have babies, or even want them.”

“Who wouldn’t want kids? Kids are great.”

“In a sticky way, yes. Tastes differ on that point. And why do you think sexual activities exist?”

“I dunno. Why does music exist? Or art? The humans enjoy them. It’s good for pair bonding, evidently. Whatever you’re getting at, angel, cut to the chase.”

“Well. You see. There are two different kinds of reproduction. Simple organisms generally use asexual reproduction, while complex ones generally use sexual reproduction.”

“... _What_?”

“Of course there’s gray areas in the middle of the continuum, and some complex animals are capable of parthenogenesis, but generally speaking, creatures - including humans - at the female end of the spectrum are born with a supply of tiny egg cells, each containing half the information needed to make a new creature. While at the male end of the spectrum, they produce sperm, which carries the other half. The egg and sperm are brought together during some forms of sexual activity, and combine, to create the fetus that, as you put it, the woman eventually buds out. That’s, um, why sex can get so messy when men are involved. The egg stays in the female and the sperm has to, um, be expelled from the male rather forcefully to make it all the way there.”

“...You’re having me on.”

“I assure you, I’m not.”

“That’s - awfully complicated.”

“Yes, well, the purpose here is to keep diversity high and have a simple way to introduce changes in a population. The information contained in the egg all comes from the mother and the information contained in the sperm all comes from the father, and they combine to create a unique new creature. Changes can be made to the information in either parent - mutations - which introduce novel features. That’s why, in a healthy species, there’s so much variety.”

“Wait. Wait wait. If that’s true - what about the Nephilim? Are you telling me that angels have - all that?”

“Well. We _can_. I suppose demons could, too. It’s not clear to me - I didn’t attend the trials, other things to do - whether the angels who fathered the Nephilim did it on purpose, to please their human wives, or accidentally. Either way, they didn’t do a very good job encoding the necessary information, which would be why the Nephilim came out so, so wonky, and the whole thing was such a disaster.”

“So - _if_ you’re right -“

“I am.”

“Greta _can’t_ feed Hannelore up until she reaches critical mass and buds?”

“No. She can’t. If Hannelore wants children, she _has_ to have a sufficient amount of sexual congress with someone on the male spectrum in order for sperms to reach her eggs. It doesn’t always happen, which is why their sexual urges tend to be so strong - they may have to try several times. And of course, if they _don’t_ want babies, most of them still have the urges, so, being humans, they’ve invented lots of sexual activities which don’t get sperm anywhere near the egg.”

“No. Nope. I’m not believing this.”

“My dear - “

“I’m _not_ calling you a liar, I just - I’m having trouble wrapping my head around it. It doesn’t - it’s silly. It’s just, _silly_. I don’t see how it _can_ be true. Somebody was pulling your leg and you bought into it.”

“It was in the design documents I archived during Creation.”

"All of which you read, of course."

"Well - yes. How else could I be sure of cataloging them properly?"

“But - it’s so ridiculous! It doesn’t make any sense! It’s not that I _don’t_ believe you, it’s that I _can’t._ ”

“Crowley. When did you last see a unicorn?”

“What?”

“A unicorn. Do you remember the last time you saw one?”

“Oh, not for a long time. There was - no, that must’ve been barding on a horse, way too big for a unicorn. Very shy critters, unicorns; don’t tend to live near people, and I don’t get out into the country often. I think the last time I actually saw one must’ve been that one that escaped from the, from the loading of the... ark...angel - angel, this sex making babies thing, is _that_ why they were loading two each of all the animals?”

“Yes, it was. One unambiguous male and one unambiguous female per species. Plus the fleas, alas. Why did you _think_ it was?”

“Redundant backup. In case one of them got washed overboard or sick or something. But if this sex thing is true...even though they still had one...No. No. They still, I’ve seen pictures of them! New, recent pictures!”

“You see new recent pictures of dragons, too, but you _know_ they’ve been hunted to oblivion. The unicorns drowned; but people remember. And tell stories. And draw pictures. And hope that a few of them are still out there, somewhere.”

“Oh.”

“Have some more wine, my dear...Oh! Oh, look, there goes the first meteor!”

“That’s nothing, angel, you wait till it really starts to get going. Making a wish?”

“What would an angel have to wish for?”

“Mmm... You suppose - we could’ve tried to catch that unicorn. If I’d known -“

“They were _very_ shy animals. Both of us working together _might_ have done it. But I had, I had rather a lot of other things on my mind at the time.”

“So did I. Ooh, there’s another one. Give it half an hour, they’ll be raining down!...So I don’t guess Hannelore’s going to be a clear win in anybody’s ledger right now. Just another poor girl having to do the best she can with what she’s got. But if Greta - good intentions don’t count for much, angel. Children may be the future, but everybody has to live through the present one minute at a time. And I don't think she's getting much passion out of Otto. It’ll all go to pot sooner or later, when Greta's restraint fails.”

“Possibly. Human hearts can be very steadfast, but a stream blocked from one outlet _may_ find another.”

“Oh? What did you do?”

“Not much. Listened sympathetically over some shortbread. The baker’s widow is quite a young woman, really. Never was completely satisfied in her marriage. And Greta has a good deal of business sense. A useful friend for a woman whose late husband always handled the accounts.”

“You’re matchmaking!”

“If you call introducing people and hoping for the best ‘matchmaking,’ I suppose I am. Try a cheese roll, my dear. They’re delicious.”


	3. 1482

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley wasn't expecting the Spanish Insquisition.

“No! Nononononono!”

“Crowley. My dear. I’m here. I’ve got you. Crowley.”

“Zzzzphale?”

“Yes, that’s right. Look at me.”

“S’dark.”

“Yes, dear, it’s deep night and we’re indoors. But I know you can see me, if you focus.”

“Hhhh...pretty...hassum wine. S’good wine...naw, s’bad wine, I’ll geh, gehyu ssssom goood sssstuff - huh. Fingerss. All lim, lim, limpy. Can’t sssnap. Nemind, I got, I got - Legsssh... I got legshbu, not moving? Whassa pointa legshat dun move?”

“Crowley. I need you to sober up.”

“No. Nono. Nope. Nada. Nix. Nyet. Non. Nein.”

_“Crowley -“_

“Zzzzirrphella - f’I, f’I, f’I sssober, ber, _urp,_ I’ll, I’ll ‘member. Why’m, why’m drinkin.”

“I know, my dear, and that’s unfortunate, but if you don’t sober up, you’ll discorporate. You’ve exceeded this body’s capacity to physically deal with alcohol. It’s dying, and I can’t allow that.”

“Wynot? Ssstupid body. I’ll make a new’n.”

“But first you’ll wind up back in Hell and have to explain to Dagon, and possibly to Beelzebub, _why_ you drank your normally perfectly serviceable body to death.”

“Ugh. Dagon. Doan wanna talka Dagon. Or Beezzzzz...Beeezzzz....buzzzy bozzzy -“

“Yes, precisely, so you need to sober up. You need to sober up, _right now,_ Crowley, do you hear me? Right now, or I’ll have to do it for you.... _Please,_ my dear.”

“Orlrigh, orlrigh, angel, doan cry, angel, nuffin, nuffin to cry ‘bout. Sssee? _Hhhhhh - hhhhhh_ \- Sssoberin up, righnow, angel, ssseee - _hhhhhhnnnnn - hhhnnnnkgkoajeo_! I cah, I _cah_ \- angel!? I can’t sssober up! _Help_! I can’t -“

“All right, I’ve got you, never mind, I’ll do it, I’ll try not to hurt you...Here we go...I’m sorry, I _know_ , not nice to have somebody else poking around in your bloodstream, I know, but not much longer...let’s get that heart rhythm back where it belongs, too. Can you help? Just a bit of a beat...Yes, _very_ good...and I’ll warm you up a bit, you’re not much good at that even sober... _much_ better. I can back out now if you want me to.”

“Sstay. Ssstay. Warm. Warm is niccce.”

“Your internal temperature had dropped a bit low even for you, but you should be safe now, and I’ll make sure you stay comfortable. You need to hydrate, though. Here, have some water.”

“Ssss. Don’t like water.”

“I know, my dear, but it’s got lemon in it, too, just a bit, you like lemon, and you need it. Come on now. There we go... Theeere we go... Right down. That’s right. I’m afraid you’ll have a dreadful hangover whatever we do. I can spruce up some of these braincells, but a lot of them are a lost cause.”

“Good. Hope I killed the ones with the memory....Nope. I should drink some more. Maybe I’ll get them this time. Here -“

“No.”

“Let go, angel.”

_“No.”_

“Don’t shout! Just let go."

"That wasn't a shout. No. Is that better?"

"I can’t snap if you don’t let go, and if I can’t snap there won’t be any more wine and if there’s no more wine -“

“If there’s no more wine you can’t finish killing yourself!”

“I’m _not_ \- I’m just _trying_ \- Angel. Aziraphale. Stop - don’t _cry_ , angel, it hurts my head, look, not trying to snap anymore, no more drinking, just _don’t_ -“

“You scared me. You didn’t meet me at the theater and when I finally tracked you down - “

“Theater? That’s not till next week.”

“That was three days ago.” 

“Oh....Oh, bless it all!...I guess I owe you an explanation.”

“You don’t owe me anything, my dear. Anyway, I was able to piece together roughly what happened, talking to the people you left in your wake. I admit, I am curious why you disguised yourself as a high church official and took a tour of Inquisition headquarters.”

“Ah. Well. I may have...since I was touring the cantinas around here anyway I may have dropped a line to Dagon in my last report about how the Spanish Inquisition was a project that seemed to be paying off and they, um, are giving me a Special Commendation. Comes with a plaque, apparently. Mammon’s idea. Different levels of commendation, different kinds of tangible rewards. Trophies and plaques and whatnot. But I’m supposed to go down there to accept it come All Soul’s Day, and I thought I’d better acquire some local color. So to speak. And I, well. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Oh. Oh, my dear!”

“I don’t know why - it’s sstupid. Reacting this way. And the commendation, it’s all - The Inquisition’s no worse than, than witch trials. Should be, should be less bad. I mean, people taken up as witches are poor helplesss old ladies, and the Inquisition is sscooping up rich folkss right and left -“

“Yes, dear, rich folks suspected of a lack of sincerity in their coerced conversion from Judaism. You know as well as anyone, the utility of wealth as a shield varies in reliability depending on the circumstances. Especially for Jewish populations in Europe.”

_“Glk.”_

“And you’ve never gotten a commendation for witch trials. Nor have you ever been foolish enough to go and look at them.”

“No. No, I never have. Ligur told me about some he went to, and I had to laugh along with him, you know? I’m a demon. I should be able to, to look thiss sstuff in the facce and, and laugh -“

“You’re not just any demon, though. You’re the Serpent of Eden. You’re the wisest, and the subtlest, and the one closest to humanity -“

“Ugh, humanity! The sooner they all go up in flames the better!”

“Well. That _is_ in line with your side’s mission statement, after all.”

“...They _do_ go up in flames. Is the thing. People brought their kids to watch. They sold, they ssold orangess...”

“Oh, Crowley...”

“And now I’ve made a mess of things, and for what? I should’ve ignored it all and made it to the theater on time. How was, how was the show?”

“Oh, never mind about that! I couldn’t watch it without you - what would be the point? We’ll catch another performance when you feel better. Would you like to take a nap now? Sleep off the hangover?”

“I’d only have nightmares.”

“...I don’t have anything urgent in hand. I can stay here and monitor you, if you sleep. Or, if you want to get drunk again, I can keep you from carrying it too far. Or I could get you some syrup of poppies - it’d suppress the hangover, and I’m fairly good at guiding those visions. You should have some more water, first, though.”

“I don’t think intoxicants are ever going to help, really, only you know how it is once you get started. Once _I_ get started.”

“Here, let me cool this, now that you’re a proper temperature. It’ll go down better.”

 _Glg. Glg. Glg. “_...You love them.”

“Yes. I do.”

“I mean, _all_ of them. Torquemada, the Royal Family, the Pope, the conversos, the sodomites, the torturers, the person who goes into the fire, the one who lights the flame. You love them all. Anyway.”

“I do.”

“And, and even...ne’mind, ne’mind.”

“Everybody, dear. _Everybody._ No matter how angry or impatient or tired I get, even when I’m cross and longing for a drink and a book and some quiet, that never goes away. Ever.”

“Tell me about it. About why you love - them.”

“Well. It’s rather deceptive to talk about them in the plural, because people don’t exist in the plural, even though they can’t, by their nature, live alone. That’s one fascinating paradox about them, for a start. Humanity is a huge network of interconnected elements, and each element is a complex, amazing, frustrating, breathtaking individual with the capacity to make or break or transform the whole that constrains its choices. I wish only good things for humanity as a whole, of course, but that’s a cool, distant thing. A person, though - it’s the person in front of me I love, you see.”

_“Gkdch.”_

“Like. For example. There’s a young lady who makes her living as a pickpocket. She was raised by an old woman who picked her up out of the gutter - literally, her mother had starved in the street, it was a very bad year - and taught her the trade, then took everything she brought home for herself, minus enough food and drink and clothing to keep the girl functional. She would beat her if she didn’t bring home enough. So this girl would slip through the richest streets in town, taking what she could get, and hiding as much of it from the old woman as she could and not be beaten. The first time I saw her she was leaning against a garden wall with the sun on her face, and her eyes closed, breathing in the smell of roses from the garden she couldn’t see. She turned tricks, too, once the old woman decided she was old enough, and about that time they acquired another child. And the first time the old woman beat the new child, do you know what this girl did?”

“Was glad it wasn’t her this time, I expect.”

“She took the stick away from the woman and hit her with it, and told her she was never to beat that child again. She took the new little one away, and found a shed no one was using, and they’ve managed some rudimentary housekeeping there, those two and another child they met begging outside the cathedral. The night before I missed you at the theater, I met them all resting by the garden wall, singing a song about roses and churchbells. I’d never heard it before. I stopped to give them a little something out of my market basket and asked where they’d heard it, and the girl said they’d made it up, the three of them, together. Think of it! How could I _not_ love them, Crowley? No matter what else they ever did or will do? The world gives them misery and cruelty and ugliness, and they find each other and help each other and make a song about beauty!”

“...But you love the horrible old woman, too.”

“Yes, I had actually been to see her the day before. She’s dying of cirrhosis of the liver. She’s angry at the world and at God and at me. The kinder I am to her the more _furious_ she gets with me. But she’s _not_ angry at the girl who hit her with her own stick and left her to die alone. She brought the subject up, herself, while I was trying to persuade her to let me carry her to a convent to die peaceably. She was wandering a bit, but she also meant to distract me. She told me the story, and she told me, both children would have starved to death, if she hadn’t taken them in and taught them how to snatch a living from a world that would as soon let them die. And that she had been hard on them, so they would know how to be hard; and when the older girl turned on her in defense of the other, she knew she had succeeded and wasn’t needed anymore. She was so, so _proud_ that they would go on living while she was dying, knowing they would never look back for her, knowing that without her, they wouldn’t exist.”

“That’s...”

“I know. It’s terrible and it’s wonderful and it’s _human,_ Crowley. I’ve never known an angel who could hold a candle to the most wretched of them.”

“...The song. Could you sing it? Do you remember it?”

“Let me think - a little more water?”

“If you sing. And don’t do that thing where you go flat on purpose. There’s no humans here to fool.”

“Very well. _Roses, roses, in the churchyard, roses on the garden wall...”_


	4. 1793

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Readers of "Defining Frivolous" know exactly where and when this is happening...  
> And it's not that dark, because Aziraphale is glowing.

“I can’t see what you want, my dear. You have to find ways to let me know.”

“Got everything I want, don’t you worry on that score.”

“I know how giving you are -“

_“Hsss.”_

“Yes, yes, but you _are_ and here and now I’m going to say it. But if we want this to satisfy anything more than curiosity it has to be reciprocal. You have to be willing to get something back.”

“Angel. C’mon. We’re not human. This doesn’t have to work like it does for humans. All I want you to do is shut your blessed brain off and let me fill all those wants rolling off you.”

“So you - oooh, my goodness -“

“Yeah, like that...”

“....”

“....”

“.... I’m _sorry,_ I just, you’re so _good_ to me and I don’t know where to put my hands and -”

“Any place you put them will be the right place. I promise. You _can’t_ take advantage of me here, you _can’t_ take too much. Breathe. I want you to breathe. I want you to enjoy _yourself_ so I can enjoy _you_ , don’t you _get_ it?”

“It’s about you as much as it’s about me or it doesn’t work! Please. If you can’t say what you want out loud that’s all right, but - hints, guidance, _something_ -”

“I _am_ hinting, blessit, I feel like I’m practically shouting and you’re not, you don’t - all right. All right. Try this. I want, _I want to be the crepes._ ”

“Pardon?”

“The crepes. I want to be the crepes, the complete Sappho, the misprint Bible, the cake, the pretty shoes, the symphony, the cup of cocoa when it’s raining, all of that. You’re so _good_ at enjoying yourself, angel! When you let yourself. All those little sounds you make, the wiggle, the, the glow - I could _live_ off all that.”

“You - what, literally?”

“ _Yes!_ Why do you think you wind up eating most of my food when we’re dining? The way you enjoy it is _way better_ than the food could ever be directly. And if _I’m_ the cause - if _I’m_ what you’re enjoying - _nothing’s_ better than that. I am being _so much more_ selfish than you can imagine right now. I might as well be an ogre, eating you up and sucking the bones! If you like what you’re putting your hands on, anything you want to touch, trust me, I’ll like it every bit as much. Possibly more.”

“Anything?”

“Yes.”

“Even your snake?”

_“Krtvnghh?”_

“It’s just that - I know there’s a sense in which that’s more, more you than the rest of your body, and I wouldn’t want -“

 _“Hssshnegh_ yesss, when I say anything I mean _anything_ , you can do anything you want _with_ anything you want, including the snake. Especially the snake.”

“Ohh, you’re coming out in scales, how lovely.”

“...I promise, if I think of anything that might be fun that you’re not already eager for I _will_ suggest it, but even if you refuse the suggestion, I will still be well satisfied. So can you relax now?...Yes, that’s good, _that’s_ my angel...That’s what I like... _Mmmphmp_.”

“Oh. Oh, my....Crowley!...oh...mmm...phm...I will, I will figure out, I will, I’ll find out and I’ll, I’ll make you feel like - like this - Crowley!”

“If that’s what you want, angel. Whatever you want.”


	5. 1972

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before the curtain goes up at the London premier of Jesus Christ, Superstar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love JC Superstar. So does my mother, the retired Methodist lay pastor and my husband the lapsed Southern Baptist, whose youth choir used to sing with the album on long bus trips. (It even had a part for him to shine in - shows tend to be heavily biased toward tenors, but Caiaphas is a bass.)That doesn't mean we are blind to its faults. If we love only flawless virtue, we will either die bitter and unlovable ourselves, or pluck out our own eyes in order to exalt the unworthy. 
> 
> Godspell, another Gospel-based musical grounded in hippy-era youth imagery, was produced a year prior to JCS, and had a lot more breakout singles, probably because it was more musically conservative. It is a good example of why performance is so vital. I didn't care for the movie version, which is very New Yorkish, but my whole family enjoyed the local production we saw in San Angelo, Texas, which tweaked the script for local color. For example, when Satan is tempting Jesus to turn stones into bread, he says the magic words - local bakery names - over them and eventually wanders off, still unsuccessful at turning them, complaining that they were good rocks he pulled from the Concho River.
> 
> The Man Born to Be King is a radio play biography of Jesus of Nazareth, written by Dorothy L. Sayers and broadcast multiple times by the BBC. Yes, Dorothy L. Sayers who wrote the Lord Peter Wimsey novels. She also wrote other religious plays and translated Dante's Divine Comedy. If you haven't read her, you want to. Milton, of course, refers to John Milton and his epic poems, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, interpreting Christian mythology for the 17th century. One hopes they have lots of jokes in them that we just don't get.
> 
> Since not everyone is in the same religious tradition here, and since I am sometimes shocked at what's not discussed in Sunday schools any more, Crowley's reference to the beam-in-the-eye crowd is to a witticism of Jesus's, concerning people who work very hard to criticize the motes of dust in the eyes of others, while ignoring the house-beams in their own. Jesus was really good at metaphors, which is one of the things that makes the fundamentalist insistence on reading the Bible "literally" so obnoxious.

“Hi, fellow season ticket holder to everything, who I only know because we coincidentally keep getting adjacent seats and coming on the same nights.”

“Yes, good eve - good Lord! Excuse me, but I can’t help noticing that a rare ginger weasel has fallen asleep on your face.”

“Yeah, thought I’d try something different. Always regretted missing the handlebar craze. You don’t like it?”

“I’m, well, it surprised me, that’s all. Getting used to a new fashion always takes some time. The, uh, the suit is also very, very _new_ , isn’t it?”

“Yup, latest thing. Called a _leisure suit_ , from the department of oxymorons. But you’ve gone back to the bowtie for special occasions, I see.”

“Yes, the ascot doesn’t feel right, not for a night out, so loose, you know...I’m, I’m not certain how I’ll like this particular production.”

“Ditto. But we got through _Godspell_ all right.”

“Yes. I may have more of a problem here, personally, because I’m not used to the musical style. _Godspell_ used a lot of traditional hymns and the pop interpretations turned out to be well within my comfort zone for show music. While this - I’m afraid I don’t know _how_ to listen to anything calling itself a ‘rock opera.’”

“You should’ve listened to the album a few times, got into training...Is there a party line on this one?”

“Not exactly. Casual comments I’ve heard are ‘any publicity is good publicity’ and ‘Well, it’s no _Sound of Music._ ’”

“Critical geniuses, your lot.”

“In taste and scent, no argument. And I’m afraid the speakers in question have very little of either. Though, to be fair, these ‘reinterpretations for modern times’ are so anchored to particular times and places and modes of expression, those who don’t leave the office much are at a disadvantage enjoying it. I can’t interest them in _The Man Born to Be King_ , at all, or even Milton. I suppose you’re having fun with the crowd that thinks it’s blasphemy?”

“I’d have more if they weren’t such predictable, low-hanging fruit. Still, the boss likes it when the numbers come from the ranks of those convinced they’re going the other way. Party line is that the show’s an opportunity to stir up religious Vanity and really send the beam-in-eye lot ferreting out the motes. Which is easy enough. Can’t complain.”

“And yet, you do. Discontent is supposed to be divine, you know.”

“Oh? How’s _that_ line fly upstairs?”

“Never used it. I doubt very much they’d catch the reference. You’ve listened to the album, then?”

“Oh, yes. You’ve read the reviews, I presume?”

“Yes, for all the good _that_ does me. I always learn more about the reviewer than about the show. But I find I’m intrigued by the emphasis on Iscariot. Such a troubled young man. I’ve always felt we let him down, that I should’ve -”

“Nope, shut it, you were wrecked, yourself. _It’s not your fault_ he hung himself... I think that’s the bit that really bugs people with this show, you know. They find it easier to identify with Judas than with Jesus, and they blame the show instead of examining what that means about who they _are_ and the belief system they _hold_ versus who they _persuade_ themselves they are and the system they _profess_. All of which makes my job practically effortless, so more power to 'em.”

“Do I need to be braced for anything?”

“Judas's suicide, for one, sounds like it happens on stage. The flogging gets a number and it’s a bit intense in audio.”

“That’s...odd.”

“Yeah, having to call it a ‘number’ gives the wrong impression. The Passion might be less abstract than it was in _Godspell,_ but it still won’t be accurate. Nobody alive really _gets_ it about crucifixion at this point. And - y’know - it’s _not him._ Can't be. Too many years and interpreters in the way.”

“And of course the truth wouldn’t be operatic enough.”

“Yeah, they can talk all they want about psychology and Jesus the Man, but when you come right down to it - they can’t wrap their heads around him as a nice bloke doing the best he could with the deck stacked against him. It might be engaging, it might be moving, it’ll definitely be more gloomy than funny; but it _won’t_ be like losing him again.”

“What about anti-semitism? We _don’t_ need a pop culture resurgence. I swear that ideology’s like, like that carnival game, what’s it called? Whack-a-Vole?”

“Whack-a-Mole. I don’t expect any more anti-semitism than is inherent in the tradition they’re using, which - _people_ , you know. The Sanhedrin finds him annoying enough to arrange his judicial murder, Pilate washes his hands and is fed up with everybody, that’s the story the humans were working with. Whether anything rises from ambient to overt’ll depend on the performances. Oh, and - they play Herod for laughs.”

_“Herod?”_

“I know. I know. Just thought I’d better give you a head’s up so you don’t lose half the number adjusting to the concept. The humor isn’t based on Jewish stereotypes, going by the lyrics. He’s out-Romaning the Romans, if I’m hearing it right. Let’s see, what else... right, there’s no women except the Magdalene.”

“Hmph. Not even Miryam?”

“Not with a singing role, and I think they’re going whole hog with the ‘opera’ thing; I don’t _think_ there’s any book that’s not on the album. The Magdalene gets a pretty tune which you may have heard on the radio as a standard love song.”

“So, we don’t even get virgin/whore, just whore? Or do they at least -“

“Nope, 100% on myth there. Judas pretends not to shame her when he objects to the foot anointing.”

“I see. Well, we knew it wouldn’t be perfect. We’ll just have to appreciate it on its own terms. Even _The Man Born to be King_ wasn’t perfect.”

“You really have a thing for that Sayers chick, don’t you?”

“She wrote very, _very_ well. And you don’t often get so unambiguous a credit to our side of the ledger in creative circles.”

“I’ve never understood why you never scraped an acquaintance while she lived in London, or corresponded with her on Dante, or anything. I know she wasn’t one of _yours_ specifically - but you don’t even go out of your way to hang out among queer writers, these days. You used to meet every writer you could.”

“Yes, well, they used to need me. Back when a work might only exist in a dozen copies, or less, I had to be johnny-on-the-spot to preserve them, and I failed as often as I succeeded. Miss Sayers is in no danger of being lost to posterity. I can’t keep up with her editions. Even less commercially successful writers don’t require the personal touch to preserve their work anymore. Then there’s practical considerations. The bookshop gives me a safe long-term storage place, but it also anchors me. I can’t shift with the literary hubs the way I did once upon a time, even if it were possible to pick a single literary hub these days. I’ve brushed up against a number of modern figures in the normal course of business, this century, but inserting myself into their lives on purpose is another matter. And if I were to become an actual intimate of an actual giant - have you _any idea_ how hard it is to escape the notice of biographical sources these days?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. Celebrity culture is a pain in the arse, unless I happen to need to appear in the background of a shot in order to convince Dagon that, somehow, I am using sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll to corrupt people. But preserving your anonymity didn’t stop you from cultivating Oscar.”

“ _He_ cultivated _me_. I barely encouraged him. And only because you were asleep.”

 _“Gkch._ ”

“Delightful as it was, that was in fact the friendship that made me realize I’d have to avoid more than casual contact in the future. He was so _notorious_ \- well, he _liked_ notoriety - I had to erase my tracks in his life _constantly._ He thought I was protecting my family and cooperated, or I couldn’t have done it. Nowadays - with so much going on and the pace of everything so fast and photographers everywhere, and my budget so tight, well, something had to give.”

“It didn’t have to be your literary friendships, though.”

“Yes. My dear. It did. When Oscar wound up on your side of the ledger I was raked over the coals about wasting time and playing favorites among the unworthy, and - Ooh, there’s the overture at last!”

“Never gets old for you, does it? These last few minutes before the curtain goes up.”

“Well, think of it! All the interlocking talents and efforts, musicians and writers and actors and costumers and set designers and the technical crew - the worst performance in the world is still such a triumph, that it gets as far as performance at all, and it’s all about to come together in front of me! Now shush, I want to focus on making sense of the melodies.”


	6. 2022

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sailing into the future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything I know about sailing small craft I learned from reading Arthur Ransome.

“What? Do I have a smudge?”

“Nope. Nothing like that. I just - I’m still not over the yachting cap.”

“You know how important it is to me to be dressed appropriately, but I’ll take it off if it’s distracting you.”

“Don’t you dare. Though how you expect to keep it on hanging upside down from the yardarm in a storm -“

“For one thing, we don’t _have_ a yardarm; for another, in storms I would trade the cap for a slicker; and for another, I don’t intend to allow a storm in our immediate vicinity until you get better at taking in sail.”

“I could reef like anything if you weren’t such a stickler. You’re confusing me, angel - it costs a lot more power to manage the weather, especially in this day and age, than it does to shorten a sail.”

“It’s not about the cost, it’s about knowing what you’re doing. You’re the one who wanted to learn.”

“No, I’m the one who thought messing about in your boat would be a nice little holiday. You know if you ever have to zip off down the phone line to deal with something at the bookshop I’ll be miracling things right and left till you get back, so why go through the motions?”

“Yes, dearest, but in order to break the rules effectively, don’t you need to know what the rules _are?”_

“Not necessarily. If you’re going to get all uptight about little things we might as well go home or to Majorca or somewhere.”

“I’m not _uptight,_ I just - I would feel better if you were, in fact, minimally competent at sailing. And it would be nice if you were ready to enjoy yourself the first time we get a good stiff run before the wind. It’s the sort of thing you’ll love - but only if you’re in control of the boat.”

“I don’t need ropes and tillers to control the boat!”

“Debatable, but in any case - we don’t know what’s going to happen. You said it yourself: someday Heaven and Hell will go to war against Humanity, and you and I both know who they’ll think they have to take out first. Which is all to the good, as it will give the humans warning, but if they ever find a way to cut us off from the powers we use -“

“It’s _our_ power, angel! Nobody can take it away.”

“ _Nobody?_ _Ever_? Under _any_ circumstance? No conceivable geas or spell or ward or trap? If a contingency is imaginable, we _must_ cover it. So the faster you learn to sail properly the sooner you can muck about miracling the process to your heart’s content. I don’t understand why you don’t want to learn. You’re good at learning. I thought you’d have fun with it.”

“I _am_! I _do_! I’ve been having fun teasing you and goofing off about it, but if you’re going to go all wobbly in the face -“

“I am _not_ going wobbly -“

“If you say so. But if you’re really worrying about things, not just being adorably fussy, I’ll start to enjoy learning this stuff as soon as you’re done with breakfast, all right? In fact - Swap places with me, let me take the tiller, and you eat while I play man at the wheel. We’re in open enough water now, you can trust me to do that, yeah?”

“Very well, if you promise to behave.”

“Snake’s honor.”

“All right, then. It _is_ nicer to be able to eat with both hands free....”

“...Sorry, what’m I doing wrong here?”

“You’re overcorrecting. Stop fiddling with it and hold it steady.”

“Ah. Yes. Lots of sitting still with steering, isn’t there?”

“Yes, my dear, I do expect you to be better with sails and ropes, once you stop playing silly buggers with them, than you are with a tiller. I won't demand a knife-straight wake, which only comes with practice, anyway. But steering a boat shouldn’t really be _that_ much different from steering your car. That’s mostly sitting, too.”

“Yeah, but I control the speed there, don’t I? And roads are less monotonous at the same time that they’re more predictable than waves. Never mind, I’ll manage.”

“We’ll get a musical device up here. That should help. Mmm, these kippers are excellent - you’ve outdone yourself.”

“Yeah, I know better than to try your patience in the galley, don’t I?...So, I’ve been wondering.”

“Mmm?”

“You learned to do a lot of things you didn’t like, in the old days. The different types of fighting, obviously, but just to get around, you had to skate and ski and climb mountains -”

“I hope I never _see_ another mountain that doesn’t have a nice marked trail, or better yet a railcar, leading to where ever I might need to go on it. Dreadfully hard on the hands, clambering over rocks and things.”

“And handling ropes isn’t?”

“I can miracle the proper callouses on and off, but clinging to rocks breaks the nails and ruins the cuticles, whatever I do. Not to mention the dirt that grinds in, no matter how good the gloves are.”

“Okay, I can see that. So, the moment you didn’t have to do any of that any more, you stopped. I don’t think I’ve seen you on skates since the last time the Thames froze. But you kept the boat.”

“I live on an island and I could never shortcut through Hell like some people, my dear. Not to mention all those years of shrinking miracle budgets. Keeping a boat is merely prudent.”

“Yeah, but there’s a tunnel now. And information networks.”

“Tunnels can collapse, and they limit the directions you can go. Electronic communication systems can go down, quite apart from the discomfort of traveling through them and the danger of losing the connection to the starting point. As long as England is surrounded by water, a seaworthy boat is a sensible possession. She came in _very_ handy at Dunkirk.”

“Ooh, yeah, I don’t think you’re supposed to call boats she anymore.”

“What? Since when?”

“I dunno, awhile now? Little detail in the gender wars. Referring to objects with the feminine pronoun strengthens the objectification of people who use feminine pronouns, I think? Something like that?”

“Really? I always felt that, in a language without grammatical gender, the practice was about elevating a vehicle to the status of an individual worthy of respect and affection - though why always a _feminine_ individual _is_ a weighted question, now it’s asked. It might have been decades before I noticed the shift in attitude - gender matters are _so_ counterintuitive! Thank you for letting me know.”

“Phsst, s’not like it took any effort...You think the _Brain of Pooh_ here could go around the world?”

“I wouldn’t want to race her - _it_ \- and I’d rather go through the canals than around the Horns, but yes, with both of us aboard that wouldn’t be a problem. Why? Is that something you’d like to do?”

“Dunno. I’ll let you know once I’ve learned sailing to your satisfaction. Might be more fun to do it in my car.”

“We can’t cook in your car.”

“Valid point. We don’t have to keep miracling damp out of things or set a sea anchor in order to take a night off in my car, either.”

“Also valid. Are you - tired of Britain?”

“Not _tired_ , exactly, only, we’ve been settled down there for awhile now.”

“Two hundred years isn’t _that_ long.”

“No, but during the whole of the Arrangement, we’ve been hanging about mostly in northern and western Europe, and in London for more time than all the other places put together. What’s the furthest we’ve been since we first shook on it - Egypt?”

“Yes. I’ve always felt bad that I never made it to any of the colonies during the Empire.”

“Yeah, I remember that proposal you wrote up for a tour. But of course Gabriel couldn’t approve it - you’d have had contact with the colony guardians, spoiled his project of isolating all of you.”

“I wonder if anything might have been different if we’d realized that at the time? Oh, well, water under the bridge; and then we quarreled and you went to sleep and I had too much on my hands at home to think about it anymore. Besides, living in London, I’ve always felt that the world was making its way to me.”

“The food and the people and the culture, sure, but not the smell of someplace different.”

“So you’re feeling restless, is that it? I...I wouldn’t feel right about leaving Soho _forever_ , but it doesn’t do humans any good for me to be brooding over one small geographical area constantly, so...”

“No, no, I wouldn’t ask you to abandon your neighbors. I’ve just been thinking - it’s been a long time since I saw the Southern Cross and that lot. And if we’re, well, we’ve about set ourselves up as independent Guardians of Earth, haven’t we? We can’t do that focusing on one tiny country. Something to think about, that’s all. No rush - oi, is that a seal? I think it’s a seal!”

“Goodness, yes, but there shouldn’t be just one of them. Let me get the glass...Oh, yes, there’s a whole bob of them, how delightful!”

“Could we get closer?”

“I don’t know, dear. Do you think you can bring us about and steer us against the wind?”

“You could take over?”

“Where’s the educational value in that? Can you, or can’t you?”

“Of course I can, angel, you watch!”

  
-30-

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I Want To Be The Crepes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27294472) by [Katzedecimal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal)




End file.
